Page 44 of A Wife for the Highland Villain (Breaking the Highland Rules #3)

Before Lydia knew what was happening, the enormous man she had collided with was striding away from her toward her father.

His voice had had a strangely soporific effect on her, rumbling across her in waves, like a calm tide rolling into shore.

Stunned into silence and paralyzed for a moment, she saw he was ten yards away before she gathered herself enough to pursue him.

Lydia lifted her skirts and ran after him, calling futilely. His legs ate up the distance between the rose garden and the house in seconds, and Lydia struggled to reach him, stretching out an arm in desperation.

“Wait, wait! Sir, what did you say?”

Her fingers closed on his arm and tugged. His stride didn’t falter a jot, continuing as if she were not even there.

Does he even feel my hand? Is his skin made of iron?

Desperate, she dug her nails in, and he slowly came to a stop but did not turn around.

Releasing him, her eyes were drawn to his wide back, the breadth of his shoulders. She had thought his size might have merely been her mind playing tricks on her, but in the fading evening light, he looked like a giant.

If he chose to, he could probably kill every man in that room with a single punch.

“Laird Murray,” he murmured.

“What?”

“My name, lass. Be sure to remember it. I am nay ‘Sir’. From now on, I am yer Laird.”

Lydia didn’t know what he meant— Laird of where?

She had an urgent need to see his face again, something tugging at the back of her mind, a shadow she thought she had seen in the dappled light beneath the roses.

“I am goin’ to do as ye ask, lassie. Yer wish is granted. I shall take ye away from London, from all these daft auld carls once and for all.”

“And what must I do in return?” she demanded as he finally turned to face her.

Lydia saw his face in the light for the first time and forgot everything else she had been about to say.

The Laird was terribly scarred. His face was disfigured by two long cuts running down from his forehead to his jaw.

What could have caused those? They look almost deliberate.

A shudder ran down her back as thoughts galloped through her head, each one more terrible than the last.

It was a ghastly visage, and Lydia knew that many in the vacuous society she had been born into might have turned away or flinched back at the sight.

But she had never been one to judge anyone on their looks.

Her father had done that to her mother all his life, and she did not intend to do the same now.

Moreover, behind the scars, there was a masculine, strong-looking face. She found her eyes lingering on his lips—far plumper than she would have expected on a man.

Her gaze remained steady and certain as he stared down at her, his eyebrow rising in surprise.

“Ye will be me bride, of course. Ye’ll come to Scotland with me,” he replied.

“Scotland?”

“Aye. And since ye already accepted, I’ll go speak with yer faither.”

“But—”

The Laird paused, watching her expectantly.

“Or I can leave him to pick for ye.”

Lydia’s mouth hung open in disbelief. She was stranded between the unknown and disaster and couldn’t think of a way to save herself.

The Laird nodded and headed into the house without another word.

Did he really say I would be his bride?

At first, the idea was horrifying, but then her eyes moved to the drawing room and the dozens of identical men on display before her. Every one of them was of her father’s choosing, molded in his image.

A man twice my age or twice my height? It is barely any choice at all.

The sound of a door slamming pulled her from her thoughts as, across the lawn, she saw her mother emerging from the house. Tommy, Lydia’s half-brother, was running beside her, his eyes lighting up as he saw her.

He ran forward, his arms outstretched, and she opened her own, embracing him fiercely as he laughed.

Lydia looked up at her mother, whose expression was much as it had been for the last few days—sour and unhappy. Lydia brushed the hair out of Tommy’s eyes and bent down to kiss the tousled locks.

“Are you all right?” her mother, Sophia, asked softly, meeting Lydia’s gaze and glancing back at the house.

“I am fine,” she said, staring at where the Laird had stood only a moment ago. “It seems father’s wish is granted. I am to be married.”

“To that monster?” Tommy asked, staring up at her, wide-eyed and fearful.

Despite the gravity of what had just been agreed, her brother’s graphic description startled a laugh from her lips.

Her mother glanced down at Tommy in admonishment.

“You must be more polite, Tommy. That is no way to speak about a guest of this house.”

Sophia stepped closer to Lydia, her fingers interlaced before her, and twisted incessantly.

“Who is he?” she asked.

“I do not know,” Lydia said nervously. “Laird Murray, or so he tells me. He says he is taking me to Scotland.”

Her mother’s brow furrowed as she scraped her lower lip with her teeth. “I don’t like it. I am not familiar with that… person.”

“Think about it, Mother,” Lydia said excitedly as another idea occurred to her. “ Scotland. You and Tommy could come with me. We could be happy there, away from Father, and you could live your own life. You could read books openly, without having to hide them beneath the covers at night.”

Her father hated the idea of educated women. He had forbidden Lydia from learning to read as a child, telling her a woman didn’t have to be burdened with such things.

Her mother had taught Lydia herself by the light of a candle late into the night, determined that her daughter would have the best start.

“We cannot leave, Lydia,” her mother murmured, her eyes unfocused as she stared at a point ahead of her that Lydia could not see. “Tommy is your father’s heir. Can you imagine what he would do if I took him from him?”

Lydia sighed. She knew her mother was right, but she hated the reality that she lived in. Every new day she spent with her father made her anger toward him increase.

She knew very little of how her parents had found themselves together, but what her mother had told her only served to showcase the Duke’s manipulative nature.

Her mother sometimes spoke of the “different” man she had met when they were courting. That when they were not yet married, the Duke was someone else entirely.

Lord Turner had been sweet and attentive, promenading in the park and paying great compliments to her father and mother. He had even gifted Sophia with a beautiful white horse as an engagement present.

Then they had married, and everything changed. The Duke was obsessed with continuing his line and expected her mother to bear him a son almost instantly.

When Lydia arrived, his frustration grew, morphing from exasperation into anger, and, eventually, contempt.

“ At least we know you can bear children, and you are not entirely useless—when will you give me a son?”

The Duchess had lived in torment for months, her body unable to give him what he asked for, and the Duke’s bitterness and anger had only grown from there—until he had taken matters into his own hands.

Lydia’s jaw tightened as her mother stood up straighter beside her, smoothing her hands nervously down her skirts. Lydia turned to see her father striding toward them over the lawns.

There was an excitement in his gait that had not been there before.

This is really happening. The Laird has offered my father for my hand, and he has accepted.

“Very good, Lydia,” the Duke said, his tongue poking out to wet the corner of his mouth as he nodded in satisfaction.

“I would have preferred to choose your husband alone, but I admit you have chosen well. I had not anticipated that a laird would come to this auction. No doubt he heard of your beauty and could not stay away.”

From anyone else, that would have been a compliment, but her father only ever saw beauty as a way to control people.

“Yes, Father,” she said routinely. “So, you have accepted him?”

“I could hardly refuse, he is exceptionally wealthy. Laird to one of the largest clans of Scotland.”

“Did you see his scars, Papa?” Tommy piped up.

“I did!” the Duke said, sounding pleased . “Quite the warrior, too, it would seem. A good choice. Excellent!”

He had not looked at Lydia once, his eyes on Tommy as he held out his hand and took his son back to the house.

That is it then. I am bought and paid for. I have done my duty in his eyes.

Lydia’s mother looped her arm in hers, and they began a leisurely walk back to the house.

“What will become of all the other suitors?” Lydia said, more as a distraction than any actual interest.

The Duchess scoffed. “They will leave. Some might say they should never have come. One of those men is seventy. ”

It was rare for her mother to speak ill of anything her father did. The Duchess had learned to toe the line early in their marriage and rarely criticized him.

“I shall lend you some undergarments,” the Duchess continued. “The Scottish winters can be very severe, and you will not have the right clothing when you arrive.” The arm around hers tightened as they reached the house. “Are you ready for what lies ahead, Lydia? He is… an unusual choice.”

Her mother’s voice was tentative, small, and quiet as it always was when she questioned the Duke’s will. Lydia would give anything to hear her stand up to him—even if only once in her life.

Perhaps that is my role now—to break free of him once and for all, even though my mother never could.

“Yes, Mama,” she said, feeling the nerves rush through her once more at what she had agreed to. “Quite sure.”

They made their way into the drawing room, where the remainder of the mingling attendees were wandering out of the room. There was a large red stain on the carpet where Lydia had spilled the wine, and she winced at the sight of several maids being forced to clear it up.

Deep male voices could be heard in the entrance hall, and her mother led her swiftly through the room toward them.

The Duke and the Laird were standing opposite one another, the difference in their heights almost comical. Her slight, short father looked like a child beside the gigantic Laird.

After a moment, that steely blue gaze found hers again. The scars on either side of his face were all the more vivid in the soft light behind.

They are an inch from his eye, no more. Who did that to him?

Lydia could not suppress a second shudder at how they could have been made.

“My Laird,” her mother said as she reached him. She bobbed a curtsy, but her eyes were cold and assessing.

“Duchess.”

His voice was so deep it reverberated through Lydia’s entire being.

“Would you care to stay the night?” her mother asked. “You are welcome to do so until your return to Scotland.”

“I cannae be away from the clan,” he said stiffly. “I shall send coaches for Lady Lydia. They can bring whatever she needs with her. Trunks, maids, anything she requires. The castle is a big place.”

“Castle?” Lydia asked weakly, gazing up at him as if in a dream.

Whatever have I agreed to? I do not know this man, and he is whisking me halfway across the country to a world of strangers.

“Aye, a castle. As I say, it is a big place,” his eyes scanned over the walls of the house around him, and Lydia almost laughed at the look of derision that formed on his face.

Her father puffed out his chest, looking scandalized.

“Are you sure we cannot have you stay even for one night, My Laird? We have space for your carriage in our stables and?—”

“I have nay carriage. I rode here, and I shall ride back.”

“At night? On horseback ?” Lydia’s mother asked, and there was something in her voice that sounded almost like awe.

“Aye.” The Laird didn’t smile. Lydia wondered if he even could.

“I will be able to provide my daughter with a carriage. You do not need to supply one,” her father began, but the Laird raised a hand. Lydia wasn’t sure if it was deliberate, but his wide palm ended up no more than an inch from her father’s nose.

“My future wife needs nothin’ from ye, Yer Grace.” The way he said your grace made it sound like an insult. “I shall see to everythin’.”

The Laird reached out a hand toward Lydia, and without conscious thought, she took it. His huge fingers closed around her palm, twisted it gently, and bent to kiss the back of her hand. A zing of awareness passed over her skin at the contact.

Then Laird Murray straightened, his expression cold and fierce once more. Turning to her father, the Laird gave the Duke such a look of contempt that Lydia almost feared for his life.

“She is mine now, or have ye forgotten?” his gaze moved to Lydia. “I shall see ye soon.”